bash localization won't work with multilines strings (with strong syntax or through `eval`)

Question

There is a nice feature in bash, about localization (language translation):

TEXTDOMAIN=coreutils
LANG=fr_CH.utf8
echo $\"system boot\"
démarrage système
         


        

Answer 1

I've played a little bit with this feature and this is what I came up with: you can include the newline verbatim as:

$ echo $"Written by %s.
> "
Écrit par %s.
$ 

In a script:

#!/bin/bash

message=$"Written by %s.
"

printf "$message" Gniourf

This script will output:

Écrit par Gniourf.

Ok, this is not really an answer, but it might help a little bit (at least, we're not using the evil eval).

Personal remark: I find this feature really clunky!